r E 

17 51 



uo 






IEODOR.E MOOSEYELT 



h:ri /.DDiii'oD BY 

GOyERNOR J00.1M J. GORNWELL 



AT A JOINT 



F V/ hi o 1' V 






a;'»iiagMia«aj»«»aBtvjiaMWi<»na«>i^^ 



j: . ,V THEATRE . CllAlU.EaTOM, WEST yillOIWIA 




THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

THE AMERICAN 



AN ADDRESS 

—BY- 
GOVERNOR JOHN J. CORNWELL 

— ATA— 

JOINT MEMORIAL SESSION 

—OF THE— 

LEGISLATURE OF WEST VIRGINIA 



BURLEW THEATRE, CHARLESTON. WEST VIRGINIA 
FEBRUARY 9. 1919. 






9, of u^ 

'6 1919 



ADDRESS 

Death knocks alike upon the door of the palace and of the 
cottage. 

Its summons comes with equal certainty to the statesman 
and the wealthy on the one hand and to the citizen and the 
poor man on the other. 

Man comes unbidden into this world and is ushered out 
of it in the same unceremonious fashion. 

He has no election as to his coming or his going. 

From the very day when he first realized his existence he 
knows that the sentence of death is upon him and the only 
uncertainty is as to the exact time when that sentence will 
be executed. It may come in the heyday of his youth, be 
postponed until middle life or through Executive clemency 
put off until he has reached a ripe old age. 

The supreme question for him is what will he do with his 
time and his talents while he is here. 

Most men's lives are filled with efforts at self -advance- 
ment, self-aggrandizement, to be plain, with self and self- 
ishness, but there is a certain number, a number which I be- 
lieve, in fact I thank God we know, is growing larger year by 
year, whose lives are devoted to the public good, to human- 
ity and to service in some form or other. 

To-day we have come together to pay tribute to the mem- 
ory of a man whose life may properly be placed in the latter 
class. 

I would fail of my duty did I not here in this presence ex- 
press to the members of the Legislature my appreciation of 
the compliment they have extended to me in allowing me to 
lay the poor tribute I bring to-day upon the bier of the man 
whose death the Nation mourns. 

I need not review the life history of Theodore Eoosevelt. 
It is well known to every man, woman and child. His 



greater activities and deeds are fresh in the minds of all of 
us. He was still an actor upon the great stage of life, upon 
the greatest of all governmental stages, when the summons 
suddenly came to him. His voice was heard in the public 
press and upon the platform day by day, to the very hour of 
his death, and it was the voice of courage ; the voice of a man 
who had been a student of affairs, of world politics, and of 
one whose experience, training and understanding put him 
in a position where he could speak with authority. 

No man could be as active and as aggressive as Theodore 
Roosevelt; could have con\dctions as serious and positive 
as were his, and express them with the courage and virility 
he did and not have opposition, yes, have enemies. 

Only the man who is negative, who remains passive and 
therefore unimportant and of little use, can escape opposi- 
tion, criticism, misunderstandings and misrepresentations. 
But for the man of conscience, of courage and of a whole- 
some desire to do good, those things are a stimulus rather 
than a handicap. 

Roosevelt came into the world with two great handicaps. 
One was, he was born of well-to-do, I might say rich, parent- 
age, rich as riches were measured at the time of his birth. 
His family were distinguished people, something of aristoc- 
racy. The men who have that handicap do not as a rule 
readily overcome it. The history of our country is not re- 
plete with instances. There are a few similar cases, but the 
great majority of the men who have won fame and distinc- 
tion, who have made enviable records and have rendered 
great public service, have been of humble parentage. They 
have mostly been graduates of the university of hard 
knocks. 

The second handicap was that of a weak physical constitu- 
tion. This he likewise overcame. 

A few years in the far West, living in the open air, on a 
ranch, not plajdng the cowboy, but actually one of them 
(for Roosevelt never pretended to do anything, he always 
did it well), and he built a physique that was the envy of 
athletes, boxers, wrestlers and prize fighters. I very well 
remember my impression the first time I ever heard him 
speak. It was just after he returned from Africa and he 



was delivering' an address the subject of which was "Wild 
Men and Wild Animals ' ', under the auspices of the National 
Geographic Society in Washington. Full five thousand 
people paid good money to hear this mighty hunter who had 
just returned from south of the Equator, from the heart of 
Africa, tell of his experiences and of the wild men and the 
97ilder animals he had encountered. I can see him now, as 
he strode upon the platform, a most wonderful physical 
specimen, who gave you the impression of the strong man 
who comes upon the stage to handle heavy weights or to 
juggle cannon balls. The same man who, as a youth, was a 
physical weakling, who had to struggle for his very life 
against the physical handicap of a weak body. 

In these two things there is a splendid example for the 
American youth similarly situate in the beginning of his 
career. 

How sad and how pitiful it is that the sons of many rich 
men of this country come into the world weak in body and 
often weak in intellect and more often still weaker in mor- 
als. They feel no responsibility and assume none. Their 
lives are useless in very many instances. Roosevelt set an 
example for them. The great war through which we have 
just passed has emphasized what such young men may ac- 
complish. It brought to many of them an opportunity 
which some accepted cheerfully and voluntarily, while oth- 
ers had it thrust upon them through the selective service 
law. We may rejoice that in nearly every case the scions 
of rich men have made good and there is every prospect that 
when they return to civil life they will not lapse back into 
old habits, or return to old walks, but will enter upon a new 
course and will serve as they would not have served had it 
not been for the great experience that came into their lives. 

An illustration of this was published in a magazine a 
few weeks ago. 

One of our greatest American aviators told the story of a 
day's experience in the air. He had dropped out of a cloud 
to attack an enemy airplane, only to find that he had landed 
amid a flock of them. He was making desperate efforts to 
extricate himself from his predicament and to make his es- 
cape, when suddenly another x\merican aviator who had seen 



the straits he was in swung down from above, unseen and 
unheralded, shot down the enemy that was closest, enabling 
the first one to make his escape. Both men returned to 
their camp and at night as they sat around supper the man 
who had rescued the first-mentioned aviator said : * ' I thank 
God for this war." His friend, whom he had saved was 
startled and did not understand the remark. He inquired 
what it meant. The man who had made it replied: "You 
boys may not know it, but I am the son of a rich New York 
banker. I never did a day's work until I got into this 
service. I had servants to wait on me and I thought it dis- 
graceful to work. All I knew was to spend money and have 
a good time. I see things differently now. I am here with 
you boys and I have come to the conclusion now that I am 
almost as good as any of you. I have come to the conclu- 
sion that I can make a man of myself. In fact, I intend to do 
it. When I have returned to civil life I shall go to work, 
not to make money, for I have that and do not need more. 
But I shall go to work there as here, for my fellowman, hop- 
ing to continue to serve and be useful. ' ' The aviator who 
wrote that story still lives, but the rich young man who 
saved his life "went West" shortly after the incident re- 
ferred to, but there are thousands of them whose stories 
have not been told in print that are coming back imbued 
with the same spirit of service and of sacrifice, and they are 
going to make the world better because of that experience 
and that new birth. 

It took the great war and the excitement of a combat 
amidst the clouds to bring out that spirit in the banker's 
son, but Theodore Roosevelt developed it in the prosaic 
times of peace without the excitement incident to war. We 
find him a very young man in the State Legislature of New 
York, where he was elected because those who supported 
him regarded him as safe and sane, knowing his antece- 
dents. They thought he would be a guardian of property, 
the rights of property and vested rights in general. And 
he was, so far as such guardianship was properly needed 
and rightly belonged, for Roosevelt knew from the very be- 
ginning of his career, and he knew to the day of his death, 
that without property and industrial and economic prosper- 



ity there could be no comfort or human happiness. He 
knew that the progress of civilization has been governed 
and guided by the progress of nations and peoples in com- 
merce and trade. 

But he knew from the very beginning of his career what 
he knew at its end, that no man or party had or has the right 
to subordinate human rights to property rights. 

He jarred the nerves of the men who expected to con- 
trol and use him by devoting his energies in that first public 
office and by spending his time in an effort to better the liv- 
ing conditions of the humblest men and women and the 
weakest children of the great city which he in part repre- 
sented. 

His work as police commissioner was of the same charac- 
ter and type. 

He was a man who simply couldnot be overlooked, no mat- 
ter to what humble position he might be assigned. He tow- 
ered above his fellows because he had the courage to speak 
and act aloud where the others spoke in whispers. 

Called to Washington as an assistant secretary of the 
navy, it was he who put Admiral Dewey and the Pacific 
fleet in a position where the gruff old admiral could cut red 
tape as well as the Pacific cable and go in and fight a battle 
on his own initiative and without directions or instructions 
from Washing-ton, further than that he should find and de- 
stroy the Spanish fleet. 

We next see him at the head of his volunteer Rough 
Riders in Cuba. Let us admit that his spectacular career 
there got the full benefit of ''pitiless publicity", but the 
newspapers and the people gave him full benefit of it all be- 
cause he had courage and he had initiative. He was a leader 
and commander of men. He had shown that before, but the 
country recognized it more clearly and distinctly when he 
came back home and the governorship of the Empire State 
was his. 

We next find the nomination of his party for Vice Presi- 
dent thrust upon him, we are sometimes told by men who 
wanted to pigeonhole him. They regarded him by this 
time as radical and as a possible candidate for President 



in the future and they would smother him with silence and 
idleness in the office of Vice President. 

An assasin's bullet laid low the suave and mild-mannered 
gentleman who graced the White House and the Rough 
Rider suddenly came upon the world's stage as the Chief 
Executive of the greatest nation of the world. There were 
shivers in counting houses all over the world, and especially 
in this country. 

His career as President and his unfortunate struggle for 
a later nomination are too recent to discuss, even though 
the great man is dead, for the smoke of the controversies 
that centered around those things has not entirely passed 
away. 

Let this be remarked here and now, for about it there is 
no controversy: Roosevelt's moral and political courage 
were as great as his physical courage, and no man but a 
fool would question the latter. He was not afraid to meet, in 
the White House, the biggest trust magnate or the wildest- 
eyed agitator. He knew that the man who had no skeletons 
in his closet, who was guilty of no act of which he need be 
ashamed if made known, need have no fear of meeting any 
man in public or in private. Only those who have done 
dark deeds fear the light. Only those who are moral or po- 
litical cowards are afraid to be seen in the presence of or to 
have conferences with other men, no matter what their oc- 
cupation or their reputation. 

Even the bitterest political opponents of Theodore Roose- 
velt rejoice that there was a reconciliation between him 
and that other great living ex-President, Wm. H. Taft, be- 
fore the former slept himself away into the great unknown. 

It will be for the historian of the future to detail the great 
life work of that ever busy, that ever active man whose 
whole life was devoted to public ser^dce — to that great char- 
acter whose memory we are attempting in this feeble way to 
honor here to-day. It would be foolish for me to attempt to 
discuss it in detail or to recount, measure or discuss any 
of the details. 

There is just one thing I can not pass over, however, with- 
out adverting to and that is the patriotism and the Ameri- 
canism of Roosevelt as manifested from the very beginning 
of the great war. 



He had the foresight to see that it was almost inevitable 
that we should become embroiled in it from the very begin- 
ning. It was his voice that cried out for preparation when 
Congressmen were making peace speeches and the great 
majority of the country was singing "I did not raise my boy 
to be a soldier." 

When politicians were pandering to the German vote, 
Eoosevelt was denouncing the hyphenated foreigner in our 
country who was secretly plotting against us. 

If there is or ever was a man one hundred per cent Ameri- 
can, ladies and gentlemen, let us write down here and now, 
in letters of living light, the name of Theodore Roosevelt. 

He sincerely desired to fight. The fact that the war was 
on a different scale and being fought along different lines 
than the one in which Mr. Eoosevelt won renown, requiring 
long and careful training for officer and soldier alike, made 
no difference to him. He was willing to offer his life and 
sacrifice it even needlessly for his country. 

He had the gratification of sending four splendid sons to 
the service, two of whom were wounded, one severely, and 
one of whom made the supreme sacrifice. The tired body 
of his youngest son sleeps to-day beneath the troubled soil 
of France, and it was the wish of the grieved father that the 
remains should rest where the foe had buried them. 

Whose heart was not wning from reading the story of 
Colonel Roosevelt being discovered, shortly after hearing 
of his son's death, in the stable at Oyster Bay with his arms 
around the neck of the pony which had belonged to the dead 
boy and which, as a child, he had ridden though the White 
House a decade before, up to the second floor! There was 
the father, the strong man, hugging the pony the boy had 
loved, and weeping like a woman. 

Who knows how many days were subtracted from the life 
of the father by the grief, the unexpressed, the subdued and 
suppressed grief from the death of the baby boy whom he 
loved so well! Only those who have suffered a similar loss 
can understand. 

And so there has passed to his eternal rest one of the most 
virile and aggressive characters this great country has pro- 
duced. 



It is too soon for the world, or even for us, to take the true 
measure of the man. We have too much admired or been 
too emphatic in our differences with him to correctly rate 
him. There are a few things, however, about which there 
can be no dispute. Some of these I have merely mentioned — 
his courage, moral, political and physical. No man can 
question these. His Americanism, his patriotism, who 
would dare to refuse to say they were one hundred per cent 
pure, pure and unadulterated? 

But there is more upon which there will be no diiference 
of opinion. That Theodore Roosevelt left this world better 
than he found it and that he was a vital force in the reforma- 
tion of his time is just as true as the others. He stood for, 
I might almost say he inaugurated the square deal in public 
life. He purified the policies of the nation to some extent. 
I do not claim that his work in that particular was complete 
or that it was always entirely above criticism. He admitted 
that he worked with whatever tools he had at hand, and the 
machine politician and the ringsters were sometimes the 
only tools at his command. But I stand here to-day firmly 
possessed of the very sincere belief that even when he 
consorted with them his motives were pure and his efforts 
were to get better results than they were willing to give him. 

It is no fair estimate of the man to pretend other than 
that he was human. Indeed he was very much so. It was 
alike the secret of his political popularity and his political 
success. He would not have us make any other estimate of 
him. No human ever lived or ever will live that did not 
make some mistakes. All humanity is swayed by sympathy 
and often swept by passion. But Theodore Roosevelt's 
love of humanity, his love of his fellowman, his desire to 
better the condition of his kind and to make his country bet- 
ter, were his dominating traits. 

Nor has any man, at least of modern times, possessed such 
versatility. He was a scholar who spoke to foreign dip- 
lomats in their own tongue. He was a soldier and a states- 
man, but he knew the flowers and birds and beasts and he 
knew the trees and the plants as w^ell as he knew the affairs 
of state. 

10 



And above all he knew men and he could influence and 
dominate them as could no other man of his time. 

We can add nothing to the stature of the man by praising 
him, for he looms in the shadow of the departed day far 
above us. 

Nor can we do honor to his memory by this meeting or by 
any of the thousands of similar meetings that are being 
held throughout this land to-day. We can show our appre- 
ciation of his character, of his Americanism, of his patriot- 
ism, of his courage and of the many splendid traits which 
he possessed, and I really think that is what we are here to 
do. 

But, my friends, we can do more, and it is our duty to do 
more. We can here resolve, all of us, that in the light of 
his memory and his courageous acts we can strive to in- 
itiate those characteristics which made him great and which 
caused the American people to appreciate him. We can 
and should resolve, each one of us, to assume our share of 
the work and the responsibilities which he laid down and 
work harmoniously and persistently to carry forward the 
elevation of public thought, the stimulation of high en- 
deavor, to the end that we may have a cleaner, better state, 
a finer, grander country and a more patriotic and a nobler 
citizenship. 

The duties that devolve upon us as executives, as legis- 
lators and as private citizens should be met with the same 
irresistible courage as Theodore Roosevelt met them. The 
question of party political advantage, or personal popular- 
ity, can be subordinated as he subordinated them. To do so 
means to bring to us something of the same appreciation of 
the people that was his heritage. His life and acts have 
forever demonstrated that the American people will not 
follow and do not honor the political or the moral coward. 
May that lesson be learned by us and may it be the guiding 
thought of every public man of the present day and those 
who come after. 

Roosevelt's fame is secure. No poor M^ords of mine can 
add one jot or tittle to it. Our words of praise, however 
strong or exaggerated they may be, will vanish with the 

11 



breath that utters them, but his work will live on as will 
that of every man, however humble, whose life is devoted 
to the public good. 

Were I asked to write his epitaph to-night, I could do it 
in three words — ''Roosevelt, the American." 

Or, were he consulted, he might prefer that of Robert 
Louis Stephenson: 

''Under the wide and starry sky, 
Dig the grave and let me lie ; 
Glad did I live and gladly die, 
And I lay me down with a will. 

' * This be the verse you 'grave for me : 
*Here he lies where he longed to be — 

Home is the sailor, home from the sea, 
And the hunter, home from the hill.' " 



12 



